Is is seldom possible to say of the medievals that they *always* did one thing and *never* another; they were marvelously inconsistent.

If there are no books. There is no civilization.

The Irish believed that gods, druids, poets, and others in touch with the magical world could be literal shape-shifters

(The festival) was awfully impersonal and abstract and there was something really gloomy about it. That's when I first started thinking about the typical view of reality.

Throughout the world, half of all children go to bed hungry each night and one in seven of God's children is facing starvation. Before such statistics, believers should never forget Dostoevsky's assertion that the suffering of children is the greatest proof against the existence of God; for without justice, there is no God.

The Jews started it all-and by 'it' I mean so many of the things we care about, the underlying values that make all of us, Jew and Gentile, believer and aethiest, tick. Without the Jews, we would see the world through different eyes, hear with different ears, even feel with different feelings ... we would think with a different mind, interpret all our experience differently, draw different conclusions from the things that befall us. And we would set a different course for our lives.

We can hardly get up in the morning or cross the street without being Jewish. We dream Jewish dreams and hope Jewish hopes. Most of our best words, in fact - new, adventure, surprise; unique, individual, person, vocation; time, history, future; freedom, progress, spirit; faith, hope, justice - are the gifts of the Jews.